


stuck in time (no surprises)

by kanjioo (erre)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Dreams and Nightmares, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Ex-EXO, LJ repost, M/M, Memory Loss, Orphanage, Psychic Abilities, Self-Sacrifice, Supernatural Elements, Surreal, Tragedy, more than friendship/less than romance, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-18
Updated: 2014-01-18
Packaged: 2018-07-10 21:11:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7007014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erre/pseuds/kanjioo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a story about the sand that slips through his fingers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	stuck in time (no surprises)

**Author's Note:**

> An old drabble expanded. ; 

Luhan is a runner.

  
He is also a psychic, but the runner prevails - the runner, is his identity. Zitao doesn't know which one came first, the magic or the escape artist; it's the chicken and the egg all over again, has been, ever since the world saw Luhan's first smile and the first flicker of pain in his eyes. Luhan exists to unstick himself from reality.

  
He's a psychic though, so the pain had been expected. Frankly, everything had been expected.

  
Zitao is not a runner. He is also not a psychic, which makes him less of a mystery. Here's a case of neither put next to a case of both, weighing the odds of the universe just by standing side-by-side. Zitao has always been a part of things, but once upon a time he was jealous of the way people treated Luhan like an immeasurable and unbreakable thing. Oh, Luhan is measurable – and definitely breakable.

  
Which is why he's such a good runner and why Zitao just has to be the anchor. So it is, so it has to be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nobody is perfect. Luhan has thin skin and bones like a bird’s, malnourished if not for the vivacity in his countenance. Only his eyes are living and it’s because life lives in his vision. Zitao says Luhan’s eye sockets hold the key to his existence and Luhan agrees.

  
“Eat it all.” Luhan urges softly. He sits back and his body looks like a mannequin balanced on the chair. Grease has become sickening to him.

  
Zitao glances at him in the midst of a big slurp as if to say, _Don’t worry, I will_. He has his free hand tethered to Luhan’s wrist because Luhan is a balloon that needs no helium to escape from gravitational fields. He can fall off that chair and leave no evident stain on the floor.

  
Zitao stops chewing. “Are you just going to watch me?”

  
“It’s interesting.” Luhan smiles, serene. “I feel like I’m at the zoo.”

  
“Haha.” Zitao says. “You should eat.”

  
Luhan lowers his head, staring fixedly at their linked limbs. “Let me go and maybe I will.”

  
Games aren’t fun anymore when there are consequences. “I’ll buy you bread, okay?” Zitao’s fingers gradually loosen one by one and he experiences a sense of loss when they break contact. Luhan remains in his seat, quiet, head twitching this way and that like a wild animal with a butterfly on its radar.

  
“…Bathroom.” He murmurs. Luhan throws up inside the stall from the oily fumes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_I’m not looking for something_ , he tells Zitao, even though he is. _You don’t have to worry about me_ , he explains. _I’m supposed to worry about you._  


  
He pauses. _But let’s go somewhere._  


  
He means: let’s not talk about this.

  
“Where should we go?” Zitao asks, ever the flexible companion. He will go anywhere Luhan goes. “Far, far away?”

  
_Nearby_ , Luhan answers, voice a knife scratching gently along wood. He folds his hands out in front of him and flexes his bird phalanges; too heavy to fly, too restless to sleep.  _Wherever, just nearby._

I can’t let go, is the silent expression. I’m a coward for it. I’m a coward, I’m a coward, I’m a coward –

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“This happened before.” Luhan says abruptly. Those eyes of his are shining pools of stars. “I saw this moment last week.”

  
Zitao slowly turns to face him. “You don’t need a sixth sense to do that. I’ve done that too.”

  
“I swear I did, though.” The words, of course, go straight through him. "I'm almost sure."

  
Zitao keeps his mouth shut.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The clairvoyance works like this:

  
Luhan does not eat, and Luhan sees.

  
Luhan eats, and Luhan throws up.

  
He gets skinnier and skinnier and Zitao cannot keep up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Luhan has nothing left. There are no bodies and there are no battle scars to mourn. He has a chunk missing from his memory. In fact, the past is catching up to him and Luhan cannot bear the impending crash.

  
“I once played soccer. Would you believe it?” He picks up a pair of sneakers and they aren’t cleats, so Zitao doesn’t believe it.

  
“Thought you’d be the running type.”

  
“I like running on the field.” Luhan steps into another aisle.

  
Zitao picks up something purple and gold from the clearance pile and throws it back in. “What’s the difference between running on a field and running everywhere else?”

  
“There’s a goal. Why would I run without a reason?”

  
“So you run away from me for a reason.” Zitao moves closer until they are as intimate as two can be on either side of a display shelf, conversing through a gap in the boxes. “Why can’t you admit it for once?”

  
Luhan stands there, stricken for a split second, before his fearless mask starts cracking from the pressure.

  
"Well." Luhan reaches an arm through the tunnel, his beautiful, faltering expression downcast. He raises his head when Zitao doesn't take his hand.

  
He doesn't really look at Zitao. He looks through him, and Zitao wonders what he sees there, what Zitao stands in the way of that draws Luhan so irrevocably to things that are invisible to the rest of the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zitao used to think Luhan was the cancer and the chemotherapy, the thing that kills and the treatment that makes it hurt even more. He tortures the people who love him with hope and despair; in the end, they all die. Zitao used to think that was why Luhan had grown so accustomed to solitude.

  
_Visions are curses_ , Luhan preaches. _What doesn't kill you makes you stronger._ He nods wisely at that.

  
Luhan claims he still doesn't remember what happened, but he's been having bad dreams lately that leave him panting in the dark. _I'm fine_ , he says. _It's nothing_.

  
Luhan's no metaphor. He's just a broken man who sweeps his pieces under the rug.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He’s crying into Zitao’s shirt, but there’s no noise except for his thick exhales, hot against the thin fabric. Zitao has never actually seen tears fall from Luhan’s eyes; he hides them like they're his greatest treasure. Zitao only gets a taste of the stale leftovers.

He presses a steady hand into the space between Luhan’s shoulder blades. They frame his palm like a gracious, welcoming box. Some centimeters beyond beats Luhan’s heart.

  
“Ah…” Luhan whispers. “Sorry.”

  
The word stands for everything.

  
"You go sleep first." Luhan slips away to perch by a window, the moonlight a neon sliver lining his silhouette. Zitao sits and waits.

  
"What are the dreams about?"

  
"Don't ask me." And Luhan is being honest for once. "Please just go to sleep."

  
Zitao is almost entirely sure that Luhan sees everything he doesn't want to remember when he closes his eyes. They say people who possess an extra sense merely gain another way to experience the horrors of their lives. Luhan's subconscious must be a thorny, terrifying place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The street is filled with vehicles chafing the asphalt in neat, packed lines. The city whirls to life around them as they stand at the intersection, the spring wind mussing up their clothing, their shoes damp with recent rain. Zitao feels physically weaker than before. He's wearing a light jacket despite the pleasant weather; Luhan is wearing a coat.

  
Luhan speaks, but it blows past Zitao's ears because of the cacophony of traffic. Luhan seems strangely calm. He's staring straight foward and Zitao follows his line of sight to find an old woman making her painstaking way down the opposite sidewalk.

  
_We should take our time._ It's Luhan's voice, though his lips don't move. Zitao studies Luhan's profile so hard it starts looking like a stranger's.

  
"What?"

  
Luhan's left hand twitches and the old woman lingers at the curb. _She's going to get hit by a bus._  


  
"You can't be-"

  
_Screech._  


  
The screams of the pedestrians are just like the winds passing through his hair, vague and soft. They appear to originate from a distance and Zitao, out of a burst of emotion, grabs Luhan's wrist. Luhan finally meets his eyes, but it's too late. He is already unreachable.

  
_We will go our separate ways in a week. You will never see me again._  


  
It rings in the sky like divine prophecy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"It doesn't have to be this way!"

  
Luhan shakes his head sadly and refuses to touch him.

 

 

 

 

 

To Zitao's surprise, Luhan starts eating again. The first two days he can only stomach little bites and snacks throughout the day. By the third and fourth, he's taking small meals. Zitao compares Luhan to a weed.

"This is good." Zitao's chopsticks go slack in his hand as Luhan finishes a bowl of plain rice. "Really good."

  
Luhan keeps his gaze diverted. He folds his napkin five different ways and casually moves out of the way when Zitao reaches for his arm.

  
"Okay." Zitao says, and he's not a weed, but he's just as stubborn. "We'll talk about this later."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He holds on. He holds on until Monday, until he wakes up to an empty space beside him. The human-shaped impression in the mattress is warm, re-conforming to its original shape underneath Zitao's unmoving hand. He claws his nails into the bed cover, grasping, grasping...

  
Gone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because once upon a time, Luhan had a nightmare about a plane crash and bloody bodies crawling out of metal crevices, calling his name.

  
His subconscious is a thorny, terrifying place - but sometimes, it is right.

  
Every time he looks at Zitao he sees a life wasted on a curse, love and survival fueled by hollow things, stolen of meaning. It's been a long time since Luhan has felt like he's belonged somewhere. The orphanage was never the right shape for him; Zitao was just very strong glue, very strong cushioning. Zitao needed comforting more than anyone, but he comforted Luhan the most. Luhan, who had always been the most undeserving, the most self-hating. Luhan, who is poison to anyone he touches.

  
Luhan shifts away from the window and finds Zitao's shape in the dim light. He is sleeping in the corner with his back turned, figure angular from chasing after fruitless futures.

  
For once, Luhan is glad for the dreams. Time is the sand slipping through his fingers, and Zitao deserves a chance to fly on his own before it all runs out. Luhan plans to cut the string. He will not say goodbye.

  
Maybe this time, he can save someone.

**Author's Note:**

> *english teacher voice* what did luhan see? also, "No Surprises" by Radiohead


End file.
